Wyrms in the Verse

Earthwyrms in the Serenity verse

During the examination on Wen I noticed a couple well healed scared around the hair line that I suspect are from a procedure involving down to his temporal cortex. Running the best rudimentary scan I could given the available tools, I have determined that something has indeed taken place but the extent I can not be certain of. Early indications are that it pertains to reasoning, functioning and is also heavily involved in semantics both in speech and vision. Captain’s behavior on the last journey has been something if not peculiar. His actions were not those he normally demonstrated and when confronted he became belligerent and ordered those persons to return to what they were doing. While I didn’t suspect he was placing us in danger… well, more than he normally does, I did notice that once our current task was completed his demeanor has returned to its normal off beat self. If this behavior resurfaces I might be force to relieve the captain of his command. The problem with that action is that none of this crew is capable of doing the job (safely) and I have no taste for it. The best course of action would be the next time we are at a location with proper equipment, have the procedure reversed. But my surgical experience with lobotomies is limited to 3 procedures and only those as an attending. A vegetable captain would not be very efficient.

During my recent crew health evaluations I stumbled across a distinct viral marker among one of them. While viewing slide 7 of crew member 3, I discovered genetic marker 46 had been trans-mutated to include a non-destruct but rapidly spreading “marker” that is unique to his physiological make-up. Crew exposure to this bloodborne pathogen would be minimal, however could be possible due to the close occupation of the common areas aboard a Firefly is unavoidable. I have run subsequent test on the remaining crew members and I am fairly certain the no others are caring this marker. Spending nearly a week using the crude testing equipment and limited stores of pharmaceuticals on hand, I have replicated what I believe is a suitable inoculation and have administrated it to crewman 3. I have made recommendations to the Capitan that all crew members should report to me every two weeks for follow-up screenings to insure no others have been exposed. It is my opinion that this advanced pathogen has been created to track the movements of its host and identify those of whom he has had contact. If my findings are correct we may have already been “marked” as I am unable to verify its exact method of transfusion or length of incubation period. While I believe it would be limited to a bodily fluid contact from the infected host, it is possible that it could have an airborne property and merely a sneeze or common conversation would be a method for infection.

Joshua sat on his bunk staring at the screen as he began to send his wave. Initializing his encryption program he began. “I know I said I wouldn’t contact you. I could never begin to repay you for all the help you’ve given me. The ident card worked flawlessly. But, I really need your help. The group I hooked up with is in a bit of a bind. I’m afraid there may be warrants issued. We both know that the Alliance can’t get that close to Calloway. An arrest and investigation may bring things to light best left in the dark. Not only for him, but for us as well. There’s an Alliance cruiser near here, The Magellan. Maybe the commander could be ordered to intervene. I don’t know what else to do. Please check on my family, I’ve sent more credits into that account for them. One of these days I’ll find some way to square this up with you, I promise. Well, I’d better go, want to keep this short. See ya later.”

Joshua sent the wave and did something he rarely used to do, but found that he was doing more and more often. He prayed.

The sensors alarm came to life bringing Nick Boots out of his daydream. He’d get back to remembering his time with Nix Tanner later. Looking at the screen, “aii ya, wo mun wan leh!” he exclaimed. Hitting the intercom button he said, “Captain, you’d better get up here!”

Captain Wen Calloway nods to the pilot who hits the controls to answer the incoming call. The screen blinks to life revealing a perturbed looking Commander Harken. “I don’t know who it is you know Calloway but I’ve been ordered to settle a dispute between you and a rancher on Three Hills.”Harken holds his hand up silencing whatever Wen Calloway had started to say. “Listen, I don’t like having to do this. I have more important things to do.” He sighed as he looked down and picked up a paper. “I’ve already contacted the magistrate on Three Hills. This rancher should already be sending 800 credits plus your expenses to a Horace Chan’s account who will be forwarding it in to your account. You need to immediately return to Three Hills, we will escort you, and you will deliver those horses. I have some other business to attend to with the magistrate. After your delivery you will leave Three Hills and I had better never hear of your return there.” The screen goes blank leaving a stunned crew wondering what caused Harken to get involved.

It’s a short trip back to Three Hills under “escort” by the I.A.V. Magellan. The crew off loads the horses to Solomon Buckhalter who exclaims, “I don’t know how you pulled off this chiang-bao hoe-tze duh, but rest assured that Solomon Buckhalter will not forget this.”Captain Calloway just smiles and says, “We do the job and we get paid. That’s all we ever wanted.”

As the Last Resort breaks atmo Chambers picks up a transmission on his fed band of Commander Harken sending his report. “The transaction went as expected. We had a little problem with Killborn. The magistrate did not want to come peacefully. I’ve installed a new sheriff and a new magistrate. I let Calloway go as ordered but I would like to keep an eye on him. Something just does not feel right. I will await your orders on the matter.”

After delivering The art piece to Fanty and Mingo, We headed to the battle of Sturges to attempt to claim the fabled brown coat treasure. Nick computed a course and things went well. On the way, we looked up what we could about the battle, the ship we were looking for, and who else might be in the hunt for the payload. Arriving at our destination was pretty rocky- the debris field was thick and the Last Resort took a knock or two on the way in. After locating the derelict ship and docking, I had Yo Yo power down the non-critical system to minimize our sensor profile. Yo Yo and Joshua headed out to open the exterior and interior doors into the ghost ship. Yo Yo restored minimal power to the ship, but it was too damaged to bring completely on line. Targeting systems did come up, however. Joshua wasn’t able to find anything worth knowing from the damaged computer. Lo and I followed the engineering team in, and we set about locating the prize. Searching went faster than expected, it turns out I have a sharp eyed crew.

Speaking of which, Nick and the shepherd stayed aboard the last resort to keep an eye on the black. Sure enough, they spotted a Unified Reclamation ship at extreme range that was heading straight toward us. Nick let us know that we had company, and we started marching double time to get the treasure off of the derelict ship. Just as we were starting to board, the reclaimers spotted us and were apparently getting their magnetic grappler ready to roll. I sent the rest of the crew back to Last Resort and set about targeting the reclaimer with the missile system on the ghost ship. I didn’t want to fire on strangers, but their intentions were pretty clear and I couldn’t let my crew come to harm. I fired all the functional missiles in a desperate salvo, and their ship took one hell of a beating. It spun and lurched off randomly. Joshua blocked their outgoing waves while I hastily returned to Last Resort. Nick plotted a course out, and did a great job of getting us through the debris.

Sadly, the haul was protein bars wrapped in gold foil. Still a decent prize, but not the strike we were hoping for. We plotted a course to sell it, and got into some money troubles over the fuel costs (and poor book keeping on my part). We made safe runs for a couple of weeks to settle our debts and then went to look for another adventure with a higher profit margin.

One was not to be had, but we did find a fellow that wanted us to deliver his horses to Three Hills, a minor moon in the rim. The deal was for us to purchase the horses, and then sell them at Three Hills according to a contract on arrival. We also picked up 2 passengers, a shifty looking fellow that paid extra to be left alone, and a fine looking filly looking to ply her trade at the rim. We loaded the ship and headed off.

I made sure that both of our passengers were closely watched. Yo Yo and Joshua put some extra security precautions up. Nick took the job a little too seriously and saw much more of the girl than he prolly needed to. The fellow was an odd duck, but kept quiet. The horses took sick with equine virus, but the shepherd did one hell of a job getting them through it. They started to recover slowly.

2 weeks out were spotted by a bored Alliance warship and boarded for routine inspection. Their commander had a stick up his ass, but I think he was just doing his job. Our suspicious passenger made a bee-line for the bridge and tried to convince us to attempt a get-away. He didn’t pay nearly enough for that, and we didn’t really stand a chance of escaping anyway. He tried to take the girl hostage to force the issue, and got 2 salvos of gunfire for his trouble from Lo and I. He kept at it, though, until Yo Yo re-arranged his organs in the most brutal bitch slap I’ve ever seen. The Alliance boarded us, checked our papers and hauled off the dumb ass passenger. After that, the trip wasn’t eventful until we made land fall at Three Hills.

It was a struggling rim world with a tiny town and a vacant landing field. Some of the crew did business in the small nearby town while we waited for the buyer to show up. The buyer was bad news early on, showing up 4 armed hands and acting suspiciously. After I informed him that the horses were recovering from equine virus, he lost his mind. He wouldn’t pay, but still wanted the horses. I told him I purchased the horses as a commodity, so they were mine, not his. If he didn’t want to pay, I would find somewhere else to sell them. Then he demanded all of us be remanded to a local magistrate to settle the dispute, but I wasn’t about to risk the crew’s liberty on that god forsaken rim-ward rock. He lives there, we don’t. He has connections with the locals that we can’t compete with.

I decided they weren’t getting the horses, and wouldn’t have a chance of getting us locked up or taking my ship. I had Yo Yo grab the horse thief and then the gunfire started. I took a hit- gunshots hurt like hell. Lo dropped several of the field hands. The local law appeared in the 15 seconds the exchange took and ran towards faster than imaginable. We pulled back into the ship and lifted off. bullets plinking away at the hull. We set the son of a bitch back down on Three Hills 80 miles away from town, then sent a wave to the locals telling them where to find him.

Now were back in the black, trying to figure out where to sell the horses. They’ll fully recover given time. I’m starting to hate the rim. The core is a pain in the ass, but at least folks will do business. Everything out here is a thinly veiled screw job. I’m not gonna let the crew come to a bad end among these yokels.

Incoming wave, from strangers. A couple of fixers called Fanty and Mingo want to meet us, for a possible job. At the moment the hull is empty and I’m all for it. I ask Nick to compute a new course solution and we spend several days waiting to make port.

The job is pretty low, basic theft, actually. An art piece went up for auction and a sore loser wants us to make it good for him. I’m not wild about the work, but I’m not opposed either. As usual, I know a bit more about things than I probably should. I up the ante as best I can, and go ask the crew what their interest is. They want it, so that’s a good sign. A good crew is worth listening to.

We put out heads together and make some basic preparations.

Joshua tries to break into the network where the piece is held, but comes up empty. He searches around a bit and we lock onto some legitimate delivery services for the area. Lo and I found some appropriate uniforms, and we got a good deal on them without much hassle. Letting people have extended interaction with Lo’s leaky brain pan and bristling armory tends to bring about that conclusion.

Joshua fabricates up some security badges that look really shiny, so we think we have a pretty good in. Not wanting to leave good enough alone, I drum up a delivery to the moon where the job is. It’s a boxed up security system, and Yo-Yo starts casually carrying around a pry bar even before we make lift off. She’s anxious to have a look what sort of systems we’ll be up against, and her curiosity is rewarded. After a bit, she has a home-made signal jammer to use against motion sensors. We box the security system back up and deliver it. While at dock, we have Yo-Yo create a little smoke and sputter to convince the port to let us stay while we buy replacement parts. We secure the ship and board one of the shuttles for the main event.

At our target destination, we get in without much fuss. Once inside, Joshua makes short work of the network and plants a fake delivery to explain out presence if we’re found. We also split the security feed to Nick and the Shepard. They kept an eye on things while Lo, Yo-Yo, Joshua and I went it. Our preparation made all the difference, we had a tight plan. We wore our uniforms, carried our badges and jimmied the security with ease. We even had empty boxes on a wheel dolly to store the haul in. We gathered up the holo projector and data disk and headed out. We bumped into security, but they checked us against the delivery schedule and we went on our way.

Back at the ship, we put the duct tape back in place and lifted off. Hiding the goods went well. Sadly, it wasn’t long before we found we had a shadow, one very, very close to us. Nick did his best to keep us out of harms way, but they were faster and closed to docking distance. They wanted the art, but weren’t willing to do business. Their captain was a punk, all balls and no brains. I started turning off the comm just to rattle him.

Yo-Yo and Lo took the fight to the bad guys, and really turned the tide. While Yo-Yo out-engineered their tech trying to operate our airlock, Lo showed them the effects of a point blank frag grenade on spacer flesh and a plastic docking rig. After that, their captain sent some pointless bluster and badly aimed missles, but their number was up. I sent info on the pirate attack, just to have at their captain and his ship. “One Eye” may not realize it, but he’s now due for the same as he gave me. Settle all debts, that’s important.

After our little adventure, the crew and I turned our eye to the art piece. I knew it had some history with the brown-coats, and sure enough it did. It’s a treasure map of sorts, and we had plenty of bright minds to shine at it. Before long we had the location of a derelict brown-coat ship, and coordinates for our next mission. We packed it back up and delivered the piece. Payment was made, but I suspect Fanty and Mingo had some hand with “One-Eye” jumping us. If so, it’ll come out and they’ll get theirs.

Turns out Fanty and Mingo had some work for us, so our trip all the way over there weren’t for nothin’. Trouble was they wanted us to go to a gorram Alliance planet to pick up a piece of holo-art. Whatever, though, if that’s what the Cap’n wants to do. He found us a ‘legit’ job as well, so we had a ‘reason’ to be trompin’ through Alliance space.

I had to route around a potential trouble-spot on the way to Bellerophon but I don’t think the Cap’n was appreciative of the delay, at first. But it gave Z time to fab-up some shiny gadget to get us in to the place with the holo-art. Had to make like the ship needed a replacement part in order to get to the pick-up point, and I got the chance to fly in Isis Canyon, too. (I think some of the flyin’ made Shepherd Concord look a little green. Funny, him bein’ a doc and all, and gettin’ flight sick.)

Well, they got the artwork, and we high-tailed it back to the ship, and took off.

I don’t know how that gorram Finnegan’s Reef snucked up on us like they did, but they had some kinda fancy-ruttin’ Burn on their Firefly. I fought like hell to get ‘em offa our back. They even managed to dock-up with us, and I thought we was goners. But there was a ‘boom’ and the ship jerked, so I tried flyin’ the Last Resort out from under Finnegan, and made it. Later I found out that that fang le Lo Wick tossed a grenade among their boarding crew. This broke their docking clamps loose, and allowed me to scoot us free of their grapplings.

Then the shagua captain of the Reef had the gall to threaten us again, but Cap’n Calloway cut him off. But that’s when that one-eyed qingwa cào de liúmáng launched a missile at us! A missile from a Firefly! Thankfully I was able to outmaneuver it, so it never hit us.

We all had a chance to look on that shiny holo-art ‘fore we brought it to Fanty and Mingo. Shepherd Concord said that with his art-learnin’ he could see some clues in it, but I’ll be humped if there was anything there but a tiny ship barely part of the picture.

Well, we got a few days before we head back out into the black. Maybe I’ll see about buyin’ a banjo.